Commentary: If a recent cease and desist letter that Southern California Edison (SCE) sent to rooftop solar activists was intended to make them go away, it seems to be having the opposite effect. Which could be a metaphor for utilities and rooftop solar itself, when you get right down to it.

Solar: The upscale Sacramento suburb of Roseville will buy electrical power from a solar facility more than 260 miles south of the city, in a Kern County town more readily known for oil wells than solar fields.

Photovoltaic (PV): Manzanar was the site of a shameful chapter in California's history, where thousands of Japanese Americans were imprisoned on account of their ethnicity. Now a utility wants to cover up that history with solar panels.

Commentary: Homeowners who have a little bit of extra cash when they install solar panels are often encouraged to add battery storage to their home system. But a Southern California utility just delivered some upsetting news to owners of those storage systems.

Commentary: A group of environmental and economic democracy activists charges that utilities are targeting Latino politicians to restrict access to rooftop solar despite the fact that most California Latinos support more solar. And the groups are using satire as a weapon.

Solar: With the cancellation of one of the biggest solar projects proposed for the California desert, the utility-scale solar boom of 2009 continues to falter. And analysts deep in the energy industry are taking notice.

Solar: In the first three months of 2013 almost a fifth of the solar installed in the state was put in without subsidies. As prices continue to fall and increasing costs of fossil fuels make solar ever more attractive, has California reached a solar tipping point?

Utilities: Though regulators are insisting that Pacific Gas & Electric pay a record $2.25 billion in penalties for its role in a disastrous September 2010 gas line explosion in San Bruno, a ratepayer activist group says that doesn't go nearly far enough.

Utilities: The head of the safety division of California's ratepayer protection agency has blasted Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) over the utility's reaction to a proposed $2.25 billon penalty stemming from a 2010 gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno that killed eight people, saying "It's time to throw the book at PG&E."

Utilities: Representatives say the Southern California utility should be able to meet demand for power even without the San Onofre nuclear power plant, as long as Fortune throws a few breaks its way -- and with the help of its customers.

Utilities: Northern California's largest utility may have to pay a total of $2.25 billion in penalties over a deadly September 2010 pipeline explosion that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes in the San Francisco suburb of San Bruno.

Utilities: The Board of Supervisors of the Bay Area's semirural Sonoma County has voted 4-1 to launch a publicly owned electrical utility, starting in unincorporated areas but eventually encompassing the entire county. If successful, the new utility would eventually take 220,000 home and business customers away from Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E.)

Utilities: On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council finalized a much-lauded agreement to wean the city's Department of Water and Power (DWP) off coal-fired electricity, and went on to oppose reopening of the San Onofre nuclear power plant. On that same day, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors passed a resolution urging the city's pension fund managers to sell off their interests in fossil fuel companies.

Nuclear : Senator Barbara Boxer has slammed a preliminary ruling by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission backing a Southern California Edison (SCE) proposal to restart the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station along the San Diego Coast. The Senator has called for a full investigation into the structural flaws that led to both remaining units of the ailing plant being shut down last year.

Utilities: The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has likely made some San Diego County residents very happy today with a decision not to allow San Diego Gas & Electric to buy power from the controversial proposed Pio Pico Energy Center and Quail Brush Power gas-fired power plants.

Utilities: California leads the nation in distributed solar power generation (DG), but if the state wants to keep its rooftop and community solar lead it's going to have to get rid of limits on "net-metered" solar power.

Utilities: The California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to devote proceeds from closing a polluting desert coal-fired power plant to promote renewable projects to benefit the Hopi and Navajo nations.

Photovoltaic (PV): Even though the L.A. Department of Water And Power's new solar incentive program has taken some heat, the new Feed-in Tariff already has more applicants for its first round than were planned for in the whole program.

Utilities: A new initiative cleared for signature-gathering Monday by Secretary of State Debra Bowen, would replace SCE, PG&E, and SDG&E with the publicly owned "California Electrical Utility District."

Utilities: Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Edward Markey have charged that SCE, the operator of the beleaguered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, was aware of serious problems with a critical part being installed.

Utilities: Though the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power won wide acclaim for approving a plan to buy 100 megawatts of solar power from rooftops and vacant lots in Los Angeles last week, some observers have criticized the program for offering too little cash to too few Angelenos.

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